What happens when you take a pot out of the kiln?

[LXNDR]

@sujato

Interesting to know, maybe that’s it. The Chinese text seems to emphasize that it would “immediately” break up, which I took as representing the Pali tattheva, which you could possibly translate as “right away”.

this would make sense if the firing technique presupposed cooling inside the kiln after putting out the fire completely while taking a pot out to cool it down would be wrong technologically

maybe there was such a technology however as far as i’ve seen and imagine, for mass production a kiln would have to be burning constantly and the pottery would be in and out thereof as a matter of course as nothing extraordinary

the Chinese version only confuses it further as in addition to rapid dissipation of heat as a likely agent of destruction (if it’s about distruction) it introduces a strong man

[raivo]

@LXNDR

the Chinese version only confuses it further as in addition to rapid dissipation of heat as a likely agent of destruction (if it’s about distruction) it introduces a strong man

I seem to remember plenty of “strong men flexing their arms” etc in the Pali Canon. This strong man is probably referring to the same thing…that something is done quickly and with ease like an ordinary everyday motion performed by a person not disabled in any way.

[LXNDR]

@raivo

I seem to remember plenty of “strong men flexing their arms” etc in the Pali Canon. This strong man is probably referring to the same thing…that something is done quickly and with ease like an ordinary everyday motion performed by a person not disabled in any way.

i have a little list of ‘strong man’ similes i’ve been able to cull and there’re among them such where strong man actions actually bring harm or pain

but sure i can see logic in your suggestion and such an import of a strong man figure here doesn’t seem impossible

[stuindhamma]

@Emptiness

Aren’t we all…“saying” empty is not the same as “knowing” empty.

We were going all Zen so I just thought I would go with it.

[daverupa]

I’ll swing it back West with Isaiah 30:14 -

“It will break in pieces like pottery, shattered so mercilessly that among its pieces not a fragment will be found for taking coals from a hearth or scooping water out of a cistern.”

I’m going to bet that pottery metaphors had been around for thousands of years by ~600-500 BCE, each aligned with various stages of production.

So I’m not so sure about potsherds being left (cracks can happen, at least; this is called a thermal shock), but the heat dissipation looks to me a lot like a reference to the mutually-conditioning ‘vitality-heat-consciousness’.